jellyfish Archives - JDaniel4s Mom

Teaching Feelings with Jellyfish Activity Printables

June 5, 2017 By Deirdre

I am joining 3 Dinosaurs and Royal Baloo in sharing collections of ocean printables. You are going to love the wonderful printables that we all are going to share with you. Today I have a fun jellyfish themed activity that you can use when you are teaching feelings.

Teaching Feelings with Jellyfish

Getting Ready

The first thing you are going to need to do is print out the Teaching Feelings with Jellyfish Activity. While you could print out this teaching feelings prinable set in black and white, the jellyfish sure do look cute in color. You will probably want to print them out on cardstock. It will make the cards easier for your children to work with.

Once you have them printed out, you will need to cut out the feeling cards and the jellyfish cards.

Teaching Feeling Activities

Exploring the Feelings

The first activity you will want to do with your kids is to have them read you each of the feeling words or read them to them. Knowing what the words on the cards are is important.

Next, you will need to have your children look over the jellyfish cards. You will need to have your children tell you what each jellyfish is feeling.

Matching the Face to the Feeling

Your children will need to pick a feeling word or you can pick one for them. They can place in on one of the boxes on the work mat. Then they will need to find a jellyfish whose face is displaying that feeling. Once you have agreed that the word and face match, they that work on matching feeling words to jellyfish faces.

Pick One Feeling

Some of the jellyfish faces look like they could be expressing more than one feeling. You can have your children pick a jellyfish. Then you can pick a couple of feeling words you think could fit that face. Finally, you can have your children explain which one they think is the best fit.

You could even have them make that face for you and give a real life example of a time they had that feeling.

If you like this focus on teaching feelings activity, here are some more wonderful printables I have created.

Open Ended Printable Math Worksheets

May 23, 2016 By Deirdre

$Open Ended Printable Math Worksheets$

This is the first in a series of printable math worksheets I will be sharing with you this summer. It is an open ended game board with jellyfish and coral graphics. We have been using it to work on addition facts, but it could be used for a number of math games to review number and facts. You will notice that I didn’t put directions for how to use the game board on the printable. I wanted it to be open ended. You can then use it to work on the skills your kids need to work on.

Below you will find a list of several of the ways that I think this first in the series of printable math worksheets can be used. After looking the list over I bet you will be able to come up with more fun ways to use it. You may even decide you want to use it to review reading skills or sight words.

Ways to Use Open Ended Printable Math Worksheets

Most of these game ideas using the jellyfish game board are focused on skills children in the primary grades are working on. You could totally use the game board with older children too.

Say the Number and Move It

Your children can use a die with a number on it or dots. Children will roll a single die and then say the number that is displays or represents. If they say the correct number, they can move that number of spaces.

Add the Number

Your children will roll two or three dice with dots on them. They will then add up the number in their heads or touch and count each of the dots of the dice. They can then move that number of spaces on the game board.

Adding and Beyond

Children will roll two dice. They will add the numbers on the two dice to find the sum. Then they will tell the next four numbers after that number.

Example:

Child rolls a 3 and 4.

They say it equals 7.

Then they count on 8,9, 10,11.

Finally they move the sum of the two dice on the game board.

$Open Ended Printable Math Worksheets$

Say a Number Then Roll and Subtract

One player calls out a number from 0-20 and then rolls a single die. They will need to state the subtraction fact that they have created.

Example:

Child says the number 11.

They roll a six.

Child answers with the number 5.

They can then move that number of spaces on the game board.

Roll and Multiply

Children will roll two die. They will multiply the numbers that appear on the die. Then they will move that number of spaces on the game board.

More Printable Math Worksheets

Counting Bee Free Math Printable for Kids

Let’s Create a LEGO Floor Graph

Roll and Cover Ladybug Addition Mats

Cat in the Hat Math Activity Mats

Place Value Pasta Printables

$Open Ended Printable Math Worksheets$

Opened ended printable math worksheets can be used for so many different games. I hope your children will enjoy the games I have shared with you above.

Paper Plate Crafts – Cupcake Liner Jellyfish

May 17, 2016 By Deirdre

This is the third in a series of paper plate crafts that feature ocean animals. The previous paper plate crafts featured an octopus and a starfish. ( I hope you will take a moment and check them out.)

Jellyfish are JDaniel’s favorite ocean creature. I totally understand why. They have such fluid movement as the glide through the water. This craft tries to capture that movement.

How we put this craft together:

Painting the Plate

We started by painting the back of a paper plate blue. (The cheap paper plates seem to be the easiest to paint. The heavier plates seem to absorb paint.) A standard children’s paintbrush was used to paint the plate. You could use a sponge brush or fork if you like.

Creating the Jellyfish

The bell or top of the jellyfish was made with a small cupcake liner cut in half. The edges of the cupcake liner half were rounded to make give it a better shape. (Your children can leave the edges straight if they like. It is really a style preference.)

Then slits were cut into a tissue paper square and a square cut from a plastic zipper bag. We tried to make sure the squares were about the same size. It really doesn’t matter how many slits you place in each. You can place one on top of the other and cut the slits in both of them at the same time.

Next we taped the plastic bag square to the tissue square on area without slits. They were then taped to the back of each the cupcake liners.

Finally the placement of the jellyfish was decided on the paper plate. It was fun to try arranging them in various ways. When we found an arrangement we liked they were glued to the paper plate.

More Paper Plate Crafts:

Brown Bear, Brown Bear Mask

Paper Plate Greenhouse

Pi Paper Plate Circle Craft

{Lunch for Kids} Jellyfish for Lunch

May 27, 2013 By Deirdre

Jellyfish for Lunch - This is a fun lunch for kids who love the ocean. It is fun and filled with healthy foods!

I was driving JDaniel to school a couple of weeks ago and he asked if I would have a special lunch waiting for him when he got home. “Sure, what would you like me to make?” I said. I know he loves jellyfish yet I was surprised when he told me that he wanted a jellyfish lunch. It is such fun to make lunch for kids that fit things they are interested. I had a great time making him a jellyfish lunch!

The foods that could be used to make the meal floated in and out of my head on the ride home. Finally I decided to just use what we had in the fridge. It didn’t take a lot of digging to find the foods I needed. They are all JDaniel’s favorites. I knew they would go over big.

How to Make This Lunch for Kids

A sandwich thin was cut in half to form the umbrella of jelly fish. One sandwich thin made umbrellas for two jellyfish. We used regular sized sandwich thins. You could use mini sandwich thins and have a larger group of jellyfish.

A slice of cheese and a slice of deli turkey were cut into the tentacles. The turkey was thinly sliced and made it a little challenging to cut into strips.

The jellyfish looked lonely on the plate so, I added a clementine starfish to the plate. The starfish I was later told should not have been put on the plate. This type of jellyfish lives below the zone that starfish do in the ocean.

Who knew? I didn’t realize that I was making a particular type of jellyfish. I thought I was just making generic jellyfish.

JDaniel did love the lunch and I think that he loved that I made it for him. Oh! and he ate the starfish that didn’t belong.

You will find more lunch like Jellyfish for lunch on my Serving Lunch board on Pinterest.

Happy Memorial Day! I hope you and yours are enjoying a wonderful weekend.

20+ Earth Day Activities for Kids

April 16, 2013 By Deirdre

Many of us celebrate Earth Day everyday. It is such a wonderful time to look for ways to reduce, reuse, and recycle things that we will be keeping at home or giving to others. Here are some of the Earth Day activities we have done. We craft with recycled materials, pick up trash we have found on the ground in parks, and use Earth friendly products.

There are so many wonderful ways to celebrate Earth Day on April 22nd. I have done several dozen Earth Day activities that feature recycled materials or highlight Earth Day. Some of them can be found right here on JDaniel4’s Mom. Others we have created and shared on other wonderful blogs. If you are looking for an activity to do or a snack to serve your children, I think that you will find a list of them below.

Earth Day Activities

Upcycled Plant Water Bottle

Paper Bag Turkey (Using newspaper, bread tags, and paper bags)

Former Wipe Container Become a Sensory Bin

Blueberries and Grape Earth

Newspaper Bowler Hat

Backyard Science Table

Wrapping Paper Collage

Plastic Jug Jellyfish

Lorax Made of Magazine Pictures

Recycled Treasures Christmas Tree

Milk Jug Skeleton

Water Bottle Fish Mobile

Egg Carton Color Matching Activity

Hanger Balance

Old Rope Letter Walking

Soda Bottle Flower

Plastic Lettuce Box Terrarium

Elephant CD Puppet

I hope you find something you and your children can do together for Earth Day or any day really. If you haven’t found just what you are looking for you may find it on my Earth Day or Crafts from Recycled Materials Pinterest Boards. There 80+ Earth Day activities shared via pins on those boards

Kids Art Project- Plastic Container Jellyfish

April 10, 2013 By Deirdre

JDaniel has decided that gelatinous creatures are his favorite animal. We have both poured over pictures of them in library books. I think it is the ones that are found in the deep sea that he loves best. They have bio-luminescence which he think is the coolest thing. I decided to make a kids art project that focused on jellyfish. (I will tell you more aboutv the kids art project later.

Visiting Jellyfish

When I told him we were going to the Tennessee Aquarium during our Spring Break, he was excited. When we visited the aquarium’s website and found out that they had a special jellyfish exhibit, he was over the moon. I don’t know how many times we looked over the pictures of some of the jellyfish that were going to be in the exhibit. While we were at the aquarium, we got to go behind the scenes to to moon jellies in incubation tanks. (The aquarium lets kids pick two special activities to attend during your visit. ) When I saw baby jelly fish on the activity board, I knew we had to select it. He loved it.

Kid's Art Project- Plastic Jug Jellyfish

Moon Jellyfish in a Holding Tank

We searched from the top to the bottom of the first building in the aquarium for more jellyfish and didn’t find any. Then we searched from top to the bottom of the second building for them. Finally we entered the final exhibit in the building and found them.

There were several wonderful tanks filled with jellyfish. Some glowed like the ones above. Others just looked cool like the upside down jellyfish below.

It wasn’t until the very last tank that we saw the comb jellies. They are JDaniel’s absolute favorite. I didn’t end up with a clear picture of them or I would have shared it with you. They display a colored thread inside them that changes color. They really are cool.

Creating Our Kids Art Project Jellyfish

On the way out of the museum we stopped in the gift shop and looked over the jellyfish items they had on sale. There weren’t many and one jellyfish that caught JDaniel’s eye was a plush jellyfish with tentacles made of ribbon. I told him that I thought I could make him a jellyfish mobile for his room when we got home. He decided that I probably could.

When we got home I dug through our recycling bin and pulled out a few items we could use for the body of the jellyfish. They was a plastic jug that used to hold green tea and a plastic berry container.While JDaniel was at school, I put it together. I think he could have made this a kids art project he completed on his own, but I really wanted to surprise him by having it done when he got home.

It is really just a berry container with two types of ribbon (One was wide with colored stripes and the other was bright blue with sequins.) and bright green rick rack woven through the air holes. One of the types of ribbon has a wire in it that allows the ribbon to be bent and twirled into place.

The berry container was placed inside a cut down plastic jug. I used fishing line to connect the two plastic items to together. I wove the fishing line through a hole in the jug and down into a whole in the berry container. Then I wove it back out through the berry container and up through another hole in the jug.

The berry container was attached upside down so I could adjust the ribbons it I needed to and so I could put a light stick into the container from time to time. JDaniel would love to watch it glow.

JDaniel was thrilled with it. It is now hanging from the ceiling fan in his room. I don’t mean to brag, but I think this plastic jug jellyfish is cuter than the plush jellyfish from the museum.

Earth Day is coming up. I hope you will dig through your recycling bin to find items you can craft with. Maybe you could even make a kids art project or join the tissue box creation. The Tissue Box Challenge starts next week on the 16th. I hope many of you will enter the contest.